Facebook is hosting a press event in San Francisco on Monday, and the rumor is that the social networking giant will introduce its very own online email service.
The invitation sent to The Reg indicates that Monday's event involves Facebook's on-site email-like "Inbox" tool — the invite includes the Inbox icon — and the word …

Giving FB your email account

I've always thought it was crazy how so many people accepted that it was all right to let facebook log in to their email service and acquire their contact lists / anything else. Then you see on your facebook page a list of your friends who have "found friends" using this method - encouraging you to join in the "fun". I think its a breach of trust. I'm not sure if it is within the terms of service of these email services - but it shouldn't be.

I think if you mail [email protected] then it is clear you are trusting person with the information and domain.com with the information. However we now have a situation where any person can be commonly expected to give away personal access to their account. You don't know who you are trusting any more and the flow of any meaningful information is stifled.

re: You are the product

I brute-force logged joined fb WITHOUT giving them my gmail pwd

I was livid and infuriated to the point of wanting to STRANGLE the decisionmakers at fb. How DARE they want my password. I would never know whether they would log in and out randomly for not only my accounts but also my messages.

I'm still infurated that android sucks in ALL of my gmail contacts when i know some are dead-ends or one-off message contacts and some are just product related, but that a$$wads at google insists that it happens, and it appears the only ways to avoid it are to delete the contacts from the phone, which deletes them from the server, or just not let the phone synch from the server contact list anymore. Dumb and invasive, and infuriating.

I am very sure i never gave fb my gmail pwd. I think i injected a bogus password some 10 times and i think the authentication/registration just gave up. For all i know, fb may have surreptitiously injected code into the browser to sniff pwds. Even if that is not true, it's probably best to change passwords as frequently as 3 months, or sooner so long as your memory is good.

If they want any market penetration at all...

... they'd better work on the reliability of their code. Facebook beats every piece of software I've ever worked with (bar one accounting package which had just been hastily recoded - shoddily - to handle networks, back when they were a novel concept) for the sheer pervasiveness of its weird bugs and inconsistencies. I've never actually lost data, but I've been given false-negative notifications of its existence countless times.

I don't think so...

You're missing the point

That level of messaging is already there in FB, it's called the Wall. Millions, half a billion in fact, everyday post messages to each other on their walls. Most conversations are one to one even though the users know that other people can read what is being posted. It doesn't seem to stop people doing it. If you don't mind airing your laundry in public then it really doesn't matter who reads what. If you want pirvacy, use the telephone (as long as you don't mind the Eschelon analysts at GCHQ listening in on your whine about privacy).

And probably still

share button in first incarnation ?

What are the odds ? being able to share viruses, spam, false virus alerts, pictures of kittens in amusing positions not only with FB friends but every associated email account = a mass explosion in useless, dangerous information and the malware writer's wet dream.

Based on the six degrees of separation principle I expect to have Bill Gates, Paris Hilton's and Steve Job's email addresses, location, phone numbers, event calander and personal family photos/ videos within a week of launch. I'll just get my coat, it's the stalking jacket.

Malware writer's wet dream...?

Philip Clarke sez:

"What are the odds ? being able to share viruses, spam, false virus alerts, pictures of kittens in amusing positions not only with FB friends but every associated email account = a mass explosion in useless, dangerous information and the malware writer's wet dream."

Facebook e-mail users ...

Beware the privacy trolls

Here we go. Wah wah wah, Facebook has my data, wah wah wah. Don't you it if you don't like it. Facebook email was inevitable. At least the good news is that it will probably have good integration with Office tools. I just hope they implement ExchangeSync support and HTTP-RPC for Outlook. With Windows Live Messenger now being able to IM with FB's instant messaging and now email, things are looking good for FB.

I for one would love to see MS buy FB. Over half a billion FB users are locked into using it now, it would be a massive win for MS against Google.

Yeah, right...

Plus of course hotmail/gmail et al don't go fiddling with their sites every couple of days and break things, The example the notifications list hasn't worked on facebook mobile for at least they last few days.

Yet another email account

So Facebook are going to give me another email account.

I've got loads already - I use some purely for when you have to register to get in to a site (no, not those sorts of sites) and for adverts I might want to see now and then - the incoming spam keeps the account alive.

I guess it'll come in handy, I could use it to set up another Faceache account.

Two counts of failure

One: Facebook "developers" cannot program to save their life. Riddled with bugs, easy ways to alternatively access data that claims to be private, etc.. I am confident Facebook will completely fail at creating an e-mail system that even works (does anyone remember how long it took before chat actually successfully sent messages??)

Two: if you're worried about Google knowing everything about you, you should be more worried about Facebook TELLING THE WORLD about you! There's an entirely different scale of privacy issue between Google and Facebook (who, as per point number one, couldn't keep anything secret even if they wanted to).

Chat successfully sends messages for you?

I know it's come on leaps and bounds in reliability since it came out, but it's really still more at the level of MSN in about 2001. I certainly wouldn't say it successfully sends messages, not if you want to depend on them getting there

Hangon...

The sad thing is...

... this will probably be extremely popular.

It's all very well for us to knowingly tut-tut about the inevitable privacy issues, the wailing when someone's account is terminated, and so forth, but out in the real world where people don't worry about these things until they are too late. Marketing and bling win every time.

In this way the Facebook and Apple fans are very similar - and the marketing companies behind them are similarly successful. Style and being part of the crowd makes users happy.

What we need to remember is that marketing, as a profession, has been around an awful lot longer than computing, and will win out most times. We IT folks have a lot of catching up to do.

God Help Us...

Couldn't agree more!

Everything they do is half arsed and the site itself is up and down like the proverbial whores-drawers. Putting aside the obvious joke of having 'real' personal data in their hands, theres no way I'd rely on Facebook for a highly available email service.

Its just inappropriate

Personally I have absolutely no desire to link my facebook life with my professional/family one in any way. I'd surely end up being "friends" with people that really have no concern with my private(ish) life... and that is not likely to be helpful.

Not a chance

will they be fair

I've noticed that they seem to be delaying email notifications of fb activity and so I wonder if they will be fair with incoming email as well. How badly they have not handled implementing security tell me they're really not mature enough to start playing with email yet.

Facebook identity

AOL 2.0 - Welcome to the Walled Garden

This is really serious stuff. FB has a success factor that AOL, MS and Google never had; an outright majority. The critical mass of population held by FB means that unlike anyone else, they can potentially play the exclusion game and get away with it.

Run it just like GMail for now; free, easy and convenient. Progressively make transfer to and from the Internet more flakey and always blame the other party. Maybe put alarming security warnings on email arriving from outside the walled garden. Make external operability a real pain so there's peer pressure for non-believers to get with it and create their own FB email account. I don't think they'd entirely exclude external email, but keep enough support for external email to ward off monopoly accuasations. You want to reach 90% of the world's online population that matter? You'll need Mark's permission.

What's scary is that 99.9% of FB users won't care at all as long as they can get their amusing pictures of cats.

Using Facebook email is like .....

Non-Facebook users

Bearing in mind the company's erm - unconventional - approach to respecting consumer privacy. I'm not sure I want *anything* to do with anyone who has a Facebook email account. I don't use Facebook and I don't want anything to do with them. But if I reply to an email sent from one of their accounts; I'd fully expect them to start mining it, acquiring and misusing information about me.

So I'll be adding a general Facebook email address rule to my blacklist.

Wow...

I'm not one of those people to harp on about privacy this and that, but this really scares me. Next thing you know you'll be able to get badges for sending different emails! "Tom sent an email to marry containing a message about an embarrassing sexual disease!

This could be really quite bad, but on the bright side, hopefully, I can get people's resumes off the hire list if this as at the top of it :)

facebook e-mail

title

Personal data issues aside, I can't see anyone creating a gmail "killer", mail & search are the two best products Google made.

Facebook email might well be very popular, just for the convenience - but I'm skeptical it will be great.

Is there any reason FB is so keen to team up with MS? After all FB is for 'cool' young people, but those are not a demographic who love MS. I can see MS wanting to tap into FB, but why t'other way around? Just money?